


There’s A Girl That Lives Up The Block

by gelbes_gilatier



Series: Protect and Survive [3]
Category: Gilmore Girls, Stargate - All Series
Genre: Gen, Holidays, Male-Female Friendship, Reunions, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2698121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelbes_gilatier/pseuds/gelbes_gilatier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanksgiving 2001, and Charlie Williamson reunites with the woman who used to be his babysitter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There’s A Girl That Lives Up The Block

**Author's Note:**

> [Holiday Fic Request Meme](http://gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com/357628.html), attempt #4. The origin story of this is a bit difficult so let's just say that recently, **mackenziesmomma** and I started to turn our focus on Anna and Charles Williamson, Evan Lorne's sister and brother-in-law in my _Protect and Survive_ series. Or rather, Charlie's parents and even _more_ precise, Charlie's _mother_ and since the family's from Connecticut and not exactly poor, it was a short jump from _one_ rich and well connected Connecticut family to _another_ rich and well connected Connecticut family and this is what came out of it. Have fun?

**There’s A Girl That Lives Up The Block **

_“Well there’s a girl that lives up the block_  
 _back in school she could turn all the boy’s heads_  
 _Sometimes on a Friday I’ll stop by_  
 _and have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed_  
 _Her and her husband Bobby well they split up_  
 _I guess it’s two years gone by now_  
 _We just sit around talking about the old times,_  
 _she says when she feels like crying_  
 _she starts laughing thinking about_

_Glory days well they’ll pass you by_  
 _Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye_  
 _Glory days, glory days.”_

_Bruce Springsteen, “Glory Days”_

  
Thanksgiving at the Gilmores’. That hadn’t been on the itinerary for this year. Hadn’t been on the itinerary for a couple of years, actually. First, when he went to the Academy, he somehow ended up spending Thanksgiving at the Lornes’, then, when he and Anna were newlyweds, they’d set out to create a few of their own traditions, despite her college obligations, his training postings, their PCSing, his deployment… and now, with a kid, well.

Anyway, he’s been detached to Bradley AFB for two weeks to sort out a few issues with people being reassigned and of _course_ it had to be Felix’s first Thanksgiving. Probably the reason why Mother didn’t even have to work too hard to get him to accept the standing invitation of one of Father’s old Yale buddy and his wife, Richard and Emily Gilmore.

Must have been that because usually, he does everything to stay the hell away from the world of his parents. He loves his parents, but there’s a reason he decided to stray from the path that was preordained for him since his birth, and that wasn’t just because USAFA had such a nice golf course. And yet he’s standing in front of the very tasteful, very imposing house in Hartford, Connecticut he got to know pretty well as a boy.

Ah, shit. He takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. Almost immediately, the door opens, a maid in an old-fashioned outfit giving him a practiced smile and welcoming him into the house. French, this time. According to Mother, Emily still can’t keep a maid is her life depended on it and good God, _don’t_ ask her about it, Charles! Don’t even mention it, you know how she is!

Well, then… time to, uh, mingle. God, he hates social events, _especially_ if he’s standing out in some way. He _knew_ he should have gone and just rented a suit or something but _no_ , he _had_ to go and just wear service dress because that’s the only formal wear he actually brought. So now he’s the only one wearing sky blue instead of anthracite or pinstripes and everyone’s giving him weird looks. If he could at least just find his… “Hey, Sailor. Sure you’ve got the right party?”

It’s a reflex, telling the voice from behind him, “It’s Airman, actually,” when he turns around and… just his luck. It’s been a few years but he’d recognize that grin _everywhere_. “Lorelai Gilmore?”

“The very same.” Huh. And here Mother had told him that Lorelai broke more or less completely with her parents after “that unfortunate thing with the Hayden boy, poor Lorelai” – trust Mother to be the only society matron to take pity on Lorelai, instead of her parents like the rest of them. “And you… oooh, it’s you, Charles Junior! God bless the Air Force and their little name tags, I almost didn’t recognize you. You do look a lot like your old man, now that I got a good look at you. I love the uniform, by the way, very dashing.”

Oh God, he’d totally forgotten the breakneck speed in which Lorelai could rattle down information and questions, even at twelve years. He blinks and has a short look around to orientate himself. He’s _pretty_ sure that he should be looking for the host and hostess or at least his parents but… oh, alcohol. Great. He snatches a glass of champagne off the tray that a waiter just carried past him and takes a sip, and he’s not even above admitting that it’s to fortify himself. Okay, what to answer first? Ah, right. “Uh, thank you. How’ve you… been?”

Stupid question. She had a kid at sixteen and ran away from home. What do you think how she’s been, huh? “Oh, great. Had a kid at sixteen, ran away from home,” uh-huh, exactly what he’d thought. Way to go, moron.

He clears his throat. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to…”

“Aw, come on, not the Golden Retriever, Charles Junior.” The… what? “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you look like a confused Golden Retriever when you’re trying to apologize for something? You just… you do this looking up with your eyebrows doing that weird going up thing and your eyes get all big and pitiful and really, it’s a great act. Amazing how you perfected that since you were six years old.” This is what happens when you meet your babysitter after almost twenty years. It doesn’t even take her five minutes to go on talking about your six-year-old me in front of _everyone_. He hasn’t even been here ten minutes and he’s already beyond ready to leave.

“Anyway, don’t worry. My kid turned out to be just really freakishly smart and good and probably everything I wasn’t.” Well, that’s good to hear, right? “Oh, and I’m the manager of an inn and I just finished business school.”

He can’t help grinning. “Congratulations.” If he’s honest, he’s a little bit in awe now. Ever since he’d known Lorelai Gilmore, he’d always been a little intimidated by her, and he’d also kind of admired her. She’d always been headstrong and an independent spirit, even as a kid and teenager and truth to be told, he’d been anything but. He kind of hopes Mother already had the opportunity to talk to her, as well, because Lorelai is _exactly_ the kind of woman his Wellesley all the way mother just _loves_ to take under her wings.

Lorelai grins back. “Thanks! So, how have you been? I see there’s a Mrs. Williamson?” Huh? Oh, right, wedding band. Lorelai always liked to pretend to be a free spirit, not caring much about other people’s appearance and all that but damn, she’s still a hell of an observer. “Does she like the Golden Retriever? I bet she does. I always knew it would be a great favorite with the girls. Definitely was a favorite with _me_.” He’s pretty sure Anna never mentioned the words Golden Retriever in connection with him, so really, she must be making the whole thing up. “So… Mrs. Williamson?”

“Yes. There _is_ a Mrs. Williamson.” Lorelai, never one to hide her emotions, looks totally piqued and he resists a sigh. She’ll make him tell her _everything_ , anyway, so he best cooperate with anticipatory obedience. “Her name is Anna, she just finished her PhD in sociology and got a post-doc job at GWU.” Still a very expectant face. Oh God. She really _is_ going to make him tell her _everything_. This time he does sigh. “We’ve been married for six years and…”

“Wait, six _years_? How old are you again? Twenty-three?” _Very_ funny.

“Twenty- _seven_ , and you knew that.” Seriously, an allusion to her babysitting in the first five minutes and now she pretends she doesn’t know how old he is? Also, he swears to God, if she tells him he looks like he’s barely old enough to drink, he _will_ …

“Oh my God.” Here they go. “You married _right out of college_ , didn’t you?” Okay, that wasn’t what he was expecting her to say. And there’s no reason for her to look so scandalized. “You sly old dog. Don’t tell me you knocked up a girl in college.”

 _So_ not funny. He actually glares at her. “Yes, we married six months after I graduated from the United States Air Force Academy and no, I didn’t “knock her up”. We just really wanted to get married as fast as we could.” And that’s the truth and nothing but the truth, and he doesn’t regret a single day of the last six years. Not even that day three days before their wedding, when Evan gave him a black eye because the idiot used to have a stupid tendency to hit first and ask questions later when it was about his sister.

“Oh, don’t glare at me, Charles Junior. Golden Retrievers can’t glare, it just makes them look even cuter. You’re cute when you glare, you know that? Mrs., no, sorry, Dr. Anna Williamson ever tell you that?” Again with the Golden Retriever. He’s gonna need something a _lot_ stronger than champagne if she keeps that up. “So, anyway, the Air Force, huh?” Yes, the Air Force, is there a problem with that? “Off into the wild blue yonder and everything? Very impressive, Charles Junior. Very impressive.” Okay, now she’s just trying to mess with him. “And patriotic. Serving your country abroad and all that. I’m proud of you, Charles Junior.” Yep, _definitely_ trying to mess with him.

He’d love to give her a longsuffering sigh now, the one he usually reserves for Thomas Moore but she’d probably just start with the whole Golden Retriever business again. He goes for deadpan instead. “You really just love calling me Charles Junior, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” The grin on Lorelai’s face reminds him terrifyingly of the way Thomas Moore likes to grin when he found a new victim to troll. He makes a resolution _never_ to introduce those two to each other. “So _have_ you been serving your country abroad?”

She must have been _really_ bored until he came along. By now he’s sure that he currently presents her main entertainment, and that in itself shows just _how_ boring it must have been for her until now. He tries not to sound too exasperated when he answers, “Yes. 1997, SFOR in Bosnia.” He’d rather not speak about it, though. He spent the year mostly inside the wire but yeah, there were a couple places he’d rather have been than Tuzla in that year.

Lorelai, for her part, looks like she expects him to elaborate but when she realizes that she’s not gonna get anything like that, she goes for, “You know, it’s a pity Rory couldn’t be here tonight.”

Huh, who? “Rory?”

“My daughter.” Oh right. She must be what now, seventeen? “Lorelai, actually and _yes_ , I named my daughter after myself, that’s what hormonally challenged women do after giving birth and anyway, Rory would probably make you the topic of her next groundbreaking essay on peace keeping in the Balkans and international politics, and you’d love every minute of it.”

Okay, whatever. Then again, she did say that her daughter is “freakishly smart” and yes, Lorelai was always prone to flushes of overwhelmingly fast outbursts of information and _yes_ , she has a tendency to exaggerate, just a _little_ , especially where her parents are involved but something in the way she just said that… makes him think that in this, she was being truthful. His surprise at that is probably the only reason it slips out, “You know… I wouldn’t mind if she called me if she had any questions on security politics.”

“You wouldn’t?” That, in turn, seems to surprise Lorelai, and really, what did she think? That everyone who wears a uniform has taken 9/11 as an excuse to stop talking to members of the public?

Okay, so he’s not quite sure what his CO would say if he knew that he just offered to be a source for a teenager, freakishly smart or not and yeah, matters of national security, etc., etc. but honestly, what does he know, anyway? He shrugs. “No. You made visits to your parents’ house a lot less boring than they could have been and I guess you kind of inspired me to go down a different road than the one they planned for me. Least I can do is give your daughter a little insider’s perspective.”

And there’s his mistake, right there. “I inspired you?”

He should have known she’d latch on _that_. “Well…”

“I _inspired_ you?” Yes, okay, maybe he shouldn’t have used that word. Maybe he shouldn’t have said _anything_ in that direction. Maybe it was a little too… “Awesome. I _have_ to tell Rory that. I inspired someone.” It was. She actually pulls out her cell phone. How did she even manage to keep that, what with Emily’s aversion to modern technology Mother keeps shaking her head about? “Wait, I have to text her… okay, done.” She… just texted her child that he… good God. “Oh, and regarding kids, what’s your status? If you didn’t knock up Dr. Anna in college…”

“He’s going to be a year old in January.” _Why_ did he just have to say that? He should _know_ by now that fueling Lorelai’s curiosity only leads to embarrassing moments like the whole “I _inspired_ you?” thing.

And there she goes, smirking, “Charles Walter Williamson IV?”

Of course she’d say that. He can’t even blame her for it, seeing as how his forbearers thought that it made such a great combination that all the eldest male Williamsons shall henceforth be named thus. It’s his turn to smirk. “Felix Evan, actually.”

“Felix _Evan_?” What? What’s so bad about that combination? At least his son won’t be _another_ Charles Junior. “Interesting choice of a name you got there, Charles Junior.” Exactly his point.

Also, he knows he doesn’t owe her an explanation but there’s a _reason_ for that it deserves repeating, as often as he can. “After my brother-in-law. An Academy class mate, pilot, currently flies C-5s out of Dover. He helped us out a great deal when Anna was…”

“Uh-oh.” Uh, what?

“Uh-oh?”

“Emily and your mother approaching us from one o’clock.” He _almost_ asks her which one o’clock, courtesy of having to deal with two pilots – okay, one and a half, since Moore never made it much further than undergrad pilot training and is now doing God knows what with AFSOC – on a regular basis but he doesn’t get as far, anyway. “Suggest deploying evasive maneuvers immediately.”

Do people _have_ to do that? See his Air Force uniform and automatically assume that he flies planes and speaks exclusively in pilot lingo? He resists a dissatisfied growl. “Uh, I’m not actually a…”

“Did I mention we have an open bar here?” Huh, what, no she didn’t? “It’s conveniently located in a cozy corner over there where we can hide for at least another hour.” Okay, but why would he want to hide… “Come on, Captain America, get going. You can tell me all about your flyboy friends and how you ended up marrying the sister of an Academy buddy over there, and I’ll tell you some of Rory’s most embarrassing childhood stories, but for the love of God, _move_.”

Okay, so whatever made Lorelai reconcile with her parents, it apparently didn’t do anything to solve the fundamental problems she has with Emily – not that he can’t empathize at least a little bit, even if he’d never admit it – and if he’s being honest, he’s not ready to deal with his mother _and_ Emily. Upper class middle aged women can be a force of nature, as cliché as that sounds and he just has been through a day of hassling with a reassignment clusterfuck of epic proportions, so he decides to pick Lorelai’s side, just for the moment. “I guess… I could use something a little stronger.”

Her eyes light up. “That’s the spirit.” Right. Spirit. Uh-huh. “Now, skedaddle.” Mh, Lorelai and her love for old-fashioned words. Apparently, she’s in for the long haul with that one. Forcing himself not to comment on it he turns into the direction she indicates and starts moving, being hurried along by her. “Good boy.” He’s not a fucking _dog_? “So… what _is_ it that you do wherever you’re currently stationed?”

Right. Preparing himself to be mercilessly mocked once he reveals that basically, what he’s doing for the Air Force isn’t _that_ different from what he’d be doing for his father now if he’d chosen Yale instead of USAFA, he first orders a whiskey on the rocks, and make that double, Anna’s not here to tell him no, and then launches right into it.

He’s right of course, she’s mocking and teasing him and he doesn’t really mind, hiding in a corner behind a door with her, as if he’s ten again and she’s sixteen and showing him how to pick a lock when she’s supposed to be making sure that he doesn’t disturb their parents doing their thing downstairs. He still misses Anna and Felix and he’d still have preferred to celebrate their first Thanksgiving as a family at home but really, as Thanksgivings away from home go, this isn’t so bad, after all. Gonna be an interesting phone call with Anna tomorrow if anything, _that_ ’s for sure.


End file.
